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11 Sep 2016

DECLUTTERING MY CLOTHES - THE KONMARI METHOD

Last week, I told you about 'The life-changing magic of tidying up' and the KonMari Method. Over the past few days, I found some spare hours to tackle the first category: clothes. I went through every single item in my closet and only kept those that I loved.

The whole process consisted of a lot of piles, doubts, trying on, folding and more piles but after several hours, I was able to complete the clothing purge.

Sorting
According to Marie Kondo, the first step is to take all of your clothes and lay them out on the floor. These aren't all my clothes by the way, I still have several pieces at my dads house, but I already sorted those out!

Next, I made three piles: clothes that I'm keeping, those I'm discarding and a 'maybe' pile.

The best way to decide whether you want to keep something or not is to hold the item in your hand and ask yourself: 'Does this spark joy?'. If it does, keep the item. If not, discard it.
For some pieces, the decision was easy to make, but I also had things that I was unsure about. The items do not necessarily make you instantly happy, but you just don't know if you should throw them away. It's hard to discard clothes, because it may come in handy or you might want to wear it again at some point.
To decide what I had to do with the 'maybe' items, I tried them all on. This already made it a lot easier to make the decision.

After having done that, I went back to the 'discard' pile to see what items I could donate and what I had to throw away. I was glad to see that the 'donate' pile was a lot bigger than the 'throw away' pile. I basically just made sure that the items I wanted to donate were clean and still good to wear. I threw away the clothes that were stained, had holes in them or were just too old and 'overworn'.

I then had to go through the clothes that I wanted to keep. The book suggests to divide everything into nine categories:

tops (shirts, sweaters, hoodies, etc.)

bottoms (trousers, skirts, shorts, etc.)

clothing that should be hung (fancy jackets, dresses, etc.)

socks

underwear

bags

accessories (scarves, belts, hats, etc.)

special occasion clothing (swimwear, suits, etc.)

shoes

I started organising my clothes and ended up with seven piles. I personally found that these seven categories worked better for me, since I had already sorted out my shoes and bags and such.

Folding
Now it’s time to start folding. Marie Kondo suggests to fold your clothing items in a certain way, so that they can stand up vertically. By storing your clothes vertically, you’ll be able to see everything you own at one glance, it’ll save space and it will leave your clothes uncreased after ironing them.

The book doesn’t go into detail about how exactly to fold each clothing item, so I went to YouTube and found some great videos on a channel called ‘Lavendaire’. The channel is run by Aileen and she made several videos about the KonMari Method. I’ll link the videos I found helpful at the end of this post.

This is how I’m folding my clothes from now on. This method might take a little longer to do, but you’ll be able to do it in no time once you get the hang of it!

Tops and shirts

1) Lay the shirt down with the back facing up. Imagine a vertical line going down the middle of the shirt. Fold the sides (and sleeves) towards that line. You’ll end up with a large rectangle.

2) Fold in half horizontally.

3) Fold that smaller rectangle in thirds. Having done that, the shirt should be able to stand up on its own.

Sweaters and hoodies
1) Lay the sweater down with the back facing up. Again, imagine a vertical line going down the middle. Fold the sides and the sleeves towards that line. I fold the sleeves vertically (diagonal folding line), instead of horizontally. Fold the cap down as well.

2) Fold the large rectangle in thirds. This should also be able to stand up.

Trousers and leggings

1) This time, lay the pants down with the front facing up. Fold in half vertically.

2) Next, fold in half horizontally.

3) Fold the large rectangle in thirds. And yes, you guessed it, this should also be able to stand up on its own.

Socks
(Marie Kondo says that folding socks is a lot better than rolling them up in a ball. By folding them, their elasticity will last a lot longer.)

1) Lay the left and right sock on top of each other.

2) Fold in thirds (or in half and in half again for larger socks).

3) Socks can normally stand up on their own as well.

That’s the basic folding method. Fold until you have a large rectangle and fold that rectangle in thirds. Usually, an item that has been folded correctly can stand up on its own. I didn’t adress shorts, skirts, dresses, stockings, underwear, etc. because they’re pretty easy to fold using this basic method.

Storing
Last on the list is to store everything. As I said earlier, storing clothing vertically has a ton of benefits. Heavier, bigger and darker items should be put in the back and to the left of each category. For clothes that should be hung, the lighter and shorter items should hang on the right. This way, the closet will feel lighter as your looking to the right.

I’m actually quite pleased with how this method worked. It took a bit of time to go through everything, but I do feel like it was worth it. I donated a lot of clothes and have more space in my closet now. Plus, I love the fact that my drawers look neat and organized!